Fanfic: Doctor Who: The Thirteen Doctors of Christmas 3/3
Title: The Thirteen Doctors Of Christmas 3/3
Author: Unknown Kadath, AKA kadath_or_bust
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 4,900
Characters: Susan Foreman, Doctors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.5 11, 12, and 13, with appearances by Rose and River
Beta: tardis-mole
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
11: The Child
She didn’t go back inside. Now that she was back, she remembered the argument she’d had with her Grandfather. And she wanted time to think. So she pulled her coat tight around her, tucked the little toy zeppelin safely into a pocket, and slipped out of the junkyard to make her way down the street, weaving through a throng of last-minute shoppers.
It was so strange to think of Grandfather living a human life, so finite and fleeting. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it. And yet he’d still been so very much himself underneath everything.
And Rose, and the baby. It wasn’t quite like a Gallifreyan family, and yet it made Susan think of her own home, when she was very small. Before it all went wrong. It was what a family was supposed to be like. Being surrounded by people who loved you. Belonging someplace, having a place to call … home.
Susan. Baby Susan. It softened the knowledge of her death, to know that the story wouldn't be over when she left it, that there would be some girl named Susan who carried on. Perhaps that was the meaning of a family; being a part of something larger than oneself.
“Susan?”
She jumped a bit when the woman spoke to her out of the crowd. It was someone she’d never seen before, a smiling woman with masses of blonde curls. She looked friendly enough, but there was something a bit out of place about her. Susan had never seen her before. “Hello?” she replied.
“I’m River, sweetie. River Song.” She held out her hand and Susan shook it automatically. River had a firm, confident grip. And a coat in entirely the wrong style for the time period, Susan realized. “Your Grandfather sent me to look for you. He’s very sorry.”
“You know my Grandfather?” Susan was surprised, although perhaps she shouldn’t be after the day she’d been having.
“Not yet,” laughed River. She had a nice laugh, and Susan decided she liked her. “A long time from now. But he remembers being worried about you.”
The surprise trip between universes had thrown off Susan’s time-sense, but by the light she thought as much time must have passed in both places. She’d have been gone for hours.
“I suppose I should go back,” admitted Susan. “Which one of my Grandfather do you know?”
“Oh, I’ve known a lot of them,” River evaded.
“I’m not sure which one is visiting me,” said Susan. The metacrisis Doctor with his human life (and lifespan?) had made her think of the reasons for those visits. She couldn’t bring herself to ask him, but perhaps River could tell her. “It’s his last, isn’t it? He doesn’t have any regenerations left, and he wants to say goodbye.”
She knew it would happen someday. But seeing it happen … that was another story.
“Oh, sweetie,” sighed River. She put an arm around Susan’s shoulders as they walked through the Tenth Doctor’s artificial snow. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. You know, sometimes I could just strangle that man. He gets a prophecy, or a footnote in a history text, or a giant radioactive space wombat, and he turns into such a drama queen-goes around saying goodbye to everyone he's ever met. I think it’s a phase he’s going through.”
“But which one sent you?” Susan persisted.
“The Sixteenth,” said River. Then she winked and slipped away down a side street. Susan spent the rest of the walk back to Totter’s Lane trying to figure out if she’d been joking.
She was glad she’d met River and Rose. It made her feel that her Grandfather really would be all right some day if she left him. Not that she expected to see any of him settled down on Earth with a normal human family, but if he could go around making friends with people like that, there would be someone to look after him, someone who would stop him from being too lonely.
“Susan! Susan, there you are!”
Her Grandfather hurried up to her, putting on a stern face and trying to pretend that he hadn’t been worried about her. And that he wasn’t out in the snow looking for her. “And where have you been?”
“I was out walking,” she said, not quite ready to forgive him yet.
He fidgeted slightly and looked at her sidelong. “Yes, well, I’ve been looking over the equipment in the TARDIS. It’s quite out of order. I’m not sure the sensors are working correctly, either-very strange readings the last few days, very strange indeed, most unreliable. It’s entirely possible this snow is natural. Probable, even. Yes, I should say-”
“I’m glad it did snow,” said Susan, relenting. Besides, she really was glad it had snowed, and she wanted his future self to remember. If it hadn’t been for the snow she’d have stayed in the TARDIS all day and never met River, or the other Grandfather, or Rose and baby Susan. “It’s very pretty.”
“Well, I suppose it is, child,” said her Grandfather, trying not to look too relieved. “But let’s get inside out of it now, shall we? It’s getting chilly.”
OOO
She dreamed of the snow that night. In the dream it lay in even thicker drifts, uninterrupted by buildings and streets, unmarked by any footprints except her own.
Susan looked around at the great white expanse of it. There didn’t seem to be anyone here, so she indulged in something she’d heard about-she lay down on it and began to wave her arms and legs to make a snow angel.
“Eep!” she giggled, as the snow started to work its way down her collar. She sat up out of the angel, and found someone offering her a hand up.
“Having fun, dear?” asked a kindly voice.
This Grandfather had ancient eyes set in a face younger than any Susan had seen so far, with floppy hair and a chin that looked like it might have been intended for someone else entirely. But however young his body was, he dressed like the oldest, stuffiest teachers at Coal Hill-the tweed and the braces and the bow tie. With one exception …
“Hello, Grandfather,” laughed Susan. “What are you wearing?”
He smiled and fingered the bow tie.
“No, on your head!”
He smiled wider and puffed out his chest proudly. “It’s a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool.”
“Really?” asked Susan, torn between horror and mirth.
He deflated suddenly, and looked so exaggeratedly forlorn that Susan had to keep fighting laughter. “No. Not really. I try, but no one will let me. Amy stole it. And then River-River shot it. Who shoots hats? Nobody …”
“I met River,” said Susan.
“What?” he said, distracted.
“I met River. And before that I met a metacrisis of you, and his family. I never met a metacrisis before. And they-”
“What! No, no, no, no, that can’t be right!” He started to pace up and down, wearing a trench in the snow, pulling at his hair and almost dislodging the fez. “Gaaah!”
“But I got back all right, and everything’s fine, and he thinks it was just the TARDISes parked too closely together,” she went on.
Eventually he calmed down. “I suppose, since I don’t remember the planet exploding, it must be all right,” he conceded. But he made her tell him everything that had happened, twice. “I haven’t really kept in touch with them, you know. Well, obviously, different universe and all.”
“They seemed very happy,” said Susan.
“Let’s build a snowman,” he said. “I always wanted to build a snowman with you. I was just too busy being a stuffy grown-up back then.”
The snowman turned out wildly lopsided, with a crooked smile of coal (“Ha-ha! There goes your gift-joking, joking!) and out-flung arms of gnarled branches. This Doctor really did seem to have given up on being an adult. He had all the energy of a puppy and as little coordination, with a funny walk and extravagant waves of his arms. But when he put his fez on the snowman’s head, he placed it carefully, making fussy little adjustments like an old man and peering at it with his eyes nearly crossed.
“I thought you liked your fez too much,” said Susan. “Why’re you giving it to the snowman?”
“Because snowmen are cool, too,” said her Grandfather. “And for safekeeping.”
“Safekeeping?”
“Yeah. Coz I’m about to do this!”
He whipped around and hurled a snowball, striking her on the shoulder. Susan shrieked as the snow splashed onto her face. “Oooh, no, you’re not getting away with that!” And she scooped up an icy handful and returned fire, laughing.
“Ah! No! Help!” For all he’d started the fight, he really wasn’t much good at it, and before long Susan had knocked him into a snowdrift.
She woke up just as she was about to shove a handful of snow down the back of his shirt, which she thought was deliberate, not to mention unfair, but probably understandable. There was a fez perched on the pillow beside her.
12: The Distinguished Gentleman
The next night, she found herself walking in a well-manicured garden in a dusky summer twilight. The scent of roses filled the air. There was a man walking beside her, a tall slim man in a white suit. His hair was neat and dark, silver at the temples (she knew at a glance that this one’s hair would never turn so dull a color as grey) and he carried a stick much like her first Grandfather’s, crunching faintly against the gravel as they walked.
“You’re very different from the last one,” she ventured.
“Yes, I dare say that I am,” he said. His voice was smooth and coolly amused, and yet not without affection. His face was a bit more youthful than his silver hair suggested, and he had eyes of a striking pale green, a color caught between ice and new leaves. “I thought perhaps it was time to be an adult. After all, if not now, then when? Do you like my garden, by the way?”
“Yes, very much,” said Susan. Then she registered the word he’d used. “Yours? Is it a real place or a dream?”
“Quite real. Part of a property I acquired on New New New Earth, in the year Seven Million.”
“Property?” said Susan, trying not to smile at the thought. But a quick look at his impassive face showed he was entirely serious. “Are you … have you stopped traveling?” She couldn’t quite imagine him staying still long enough to have a house and a garden and things, let alone bothering with them. The car he’d had during his exile she could understand. But this place?
“Oh, no, I still travel,” he assured her, with a dry little chuckle. “I have a staff of liberated robots who maintain all this while I’m away. But it’s good to have a place to come back to.” His expression darkened slightly, like the fading sky above them. “Someplace that belongs to me, rather than relying on the welcome of others.”
“Are there still troubles back home, Grandfather?” asked Susan.
“Home?” he asked, startled. Then his eyes widened, and he gave a small, sharp shake of his head. “This is my home, child. River quite likes it, she tells me.”
“Oh, you still know River?” said Susan.
“Oh, yes, for several lives now. I’m not sure this is her favorite incarnation of mine, between you and me,” he confided. “She tells me I’m turning stuffy. Or senile. Keeps using the topiary for target practice, says it’ll keep me from getting too set in my ways.” He made a small tching noise, though he didn’t seem terribly bothered. “Perhaps I am getting old. I like to have a place where my family can gather.”
“Family?” asked Susan.
He turned to her and smiled, all secrets and mysteries.
“Tell me, Susan,” he said. “What did you see, in the Untempered Schism?”
Susan was silent for a moment. She almost stopped walking in her surprise. That was something that was simply Not Talked About, and here was this prim-and-proper incarnation of her Grandfather, asking her so baldly about what was supposed to be the most private of things.
But she realized that he was still waiting patiently for an answer, and Susan cared even less about what was ‘proper’ than her first Grandfather had.
“I saw Gallifrey,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Gallifrey with all eternity around us, and our time stretching out in front of us. And all that we were, and all that we could ever be … That’s why I came with you, Grandfather.”
“Oh?”
“Because …” She toed a loose bit of gravel. “I saw that Gallifrey had already been about as much as it was going to be, and I wanted more.”
“I see,” he said, nodding thoughtfully.
“What did you see?” she asked on impulse, not expecting an answer.
“You saw Eternity from the shelter of Gallifrey. I didn’t see Gallifrey at all,” he said. “Only myself, alone, unshielded, unprotected against the backdrop of Eternity. First I ran from it. And then … then I ran towards it. Towards …”
He raised his stick, pointing at the sky. Susan looked up. Night had fallen fully, and there were a million million stars shining like diamonds against the darkness …
She woke up, feeling tears in her eyes at the wonder of it, and a fading homesickness for a place she had left behind, and a place she would never go. On her pillow was a little snow globe, of the sort humans made, and inside it was a replica of the Citadel, perfect in every detail.
OOO
“Grandfather?” asked Susan.
“Hm?” He looked up from the chessboard, listening attentively. He hadn’t apologized for what he'd accused her of, and Susan knew better than to expect it, but he obviously realized he was in the wrong. He had stopped pursuing his sensor gremlins with such intensity, though Susan knew how much it must still bother him, and he was going out of his way to do other things with her.
She thought maybe she could take advantage of his mood to ask him a few things he might refuse to talk about otherwise. “Do you ever think of home, Grandfather?”
“Eh? Home? Why, what’s brought this on?” he sputtered, suddenly peering at her suspiciously.
“Oh, it’s just all the people at school, talking about Christmas. How they’re going to visit all their relatives.” Susan toyed with a pawn, pretending the subject was of no great importance. “I was just wondering what was happening back home. What everyone was doing. If you ever thought about it.”
“I don’t see why I should,” he sniffed. “I dare say they’re getting on perfectly well without us. And don’t think we’d be given a warm welcome if we popped back for a visit-unless it was a welcome too hot for our liking.”
“Oh, no, Grandfather, I don’t want to go back there,” said Susan hastily.
“Oh. Well. That’s very good, as I can’t take you.” He looked very relieved, and Susan wondered if he’d thought she would ask to go home because of those things he'd said. Silly Grandfather, how could he think that? “You want to visit these children you’ve met at school, then? Well, I don’t see what harm that could do, if you don’t make too great a habit of it. You’ll want to see them on Christmas, I suppose.”
“No …” said Susan, although normally he discouraged her from getting too close to human students. “It’s Christmas. They want to be with their families. You’re my family, Grandfather. I want to spend it with you.”
“Oh! Oh, I see,” chuckled her Grandfather, ruffling her hair. He was obviously pleased by this, though he was trying not to show how moved he was. “Silly girl-don’t you spend most of your days with me?”
“Well, yes, Grandfather.” Susan smiled at him, thought about asking again to celebrate Christmas with him, and didn’t quite dare. She moved her bishop instead. “Check!”
13: The Ginger
If Susan had been human, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all that night. As it was it took her a great deal of concentration and every breathing technique she knew.
Part of the problem was that she wasn’t sure she wanted to fall asleep. She very much wanted to see her next future Grandfather, now that she was used to the changes and had come to look forward to them. But Time Lords only had thirteen lives, River’s joke (it had to be a joke) notwithstanding. This would be the last night, and she didn’t want it to be over.
When she did sleep, she was disappointed. All she dreamed about were tap-dancing penguins, and she was pretty sure none of them were her Grandfather. Finally, around three in the morning, she woke herself up.
“I was wondering when you’d get tired of the penguins.”
He was sitting in the chair by her bed, a very young man (even younger than the Eleventh, and only a few years older than Susan herself) dressed all in black. He had a black velvet coat, black shirt, black jeans, black boots, with a black tie patterned in little silver question marks.
It should have looked sinister, but despite the color his clothes were such a mish-mash of styles that it came off as merely eccentric at worse. And his face was too open and cheerful to look anything less than friendly.
His hair was flaming ginger. His eyes were older than the stars, and as bright as a child’s, and he had a smile like the first light of dawn on Christmas morning.
“Grandfather,” she said. “You’re here, really here.”
“I got tired of sleeping so much,” he said. “Anyway, you’ve met everyone else. It was time to meet the real me. The last me.”
Susan got up and went over to hug him. “I’m glad I met you,” she said, “all of you.”
“And I’m glad I came back to see you.” He moved away to arm’s length, looking her over fondly. “Ah. My Susan.”
“Are you in danger, Grandfather?” she asked. “Is that why you’ve come back now?”
“No!” he said. Then he looked guilty and ran a nervous hand through his hair, which already looked like he styled it by giving himself massive electric shocks. “Well, not really. Well, not really more than usual. Well, there’s-”
“Giant radioactive space wombat?”
“You have been talking to River, I see. Well, yes, there’s that.” He fidgeted. “But I did simply want to see you. And I did promise you I'd come back, one day.”
He sighed. “I put things off, you know-always have. I store things up for rainy days. And I’ve done it for so long I’m starting to have more things than days. Now, now,” he overrode her protests, “I still have a good many days left, I hope. But there’s something about being on one’s thirteenth life that gives one a different perspective of time. And promises are made to be kept.”
They were interrupted by a young ginger woman bursting into the room. “Doctor, that old geezer’s woken up and he’s on the warpath. I managed to distract him by turning half the knobs in the engine room-”
“Oh, dear, I wish you hadn’t done that,” said the Doctor, tugging at his hair again. “This is Donna Temple-Noble,” he said to Susan.
“Doctor Donna Temple-Noble,” said the woman, rolling her eyes.
“I traveled with her gran,” finished the Doctor.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Susan, shaking Donna’s hand. “I’m Susan.”
“So you’re his … granddaughter,” said Donna, looking between Susan and the young man. “It’s a job and a half looking after him, isn’t it? He got us arrested three times last week.”
“I only got us arrested twice!” sputtered the Doctor. “The other time was your fault. Pay no attention, Susan!”
“Well, if you had gotten the decade right, my bikini wouldn't have been public indecency, so … still your fault,” Donna shot back, hands on her hips.
He stuck his tongue out at her and turned to his granddaughter. “Susan-”
“I know.” She would very much like to get to know Donna, and this version of her Grandfather, but she knew if her first Grandfather was awake they didn’t have much time. She hadn’t had nearly enough time with any of them. “I love you, Grandfather. I’ll never forget any of you.”
“My dear Susan.” He took her in his arms and kissed her forehead one last time. “I’ve always been so proud of you. And I always will be. You never did waver in your beliefs, even when I faltered in mine. And you will always be an inspiration to me.”
He gave her shoulders a last squeeze and stepped away. “I must go. I’ve left your last gift in the console room.”
“Grandfather will go mad,” said Susan, wincing.
“No, I won’t.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Trust me, I was there.”
Susan found herself crying. She knew what had to be, but she couldn’t stay strong any more. “Grandfather, I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to go, either,” he said, reaching out to touch her face. She saw that he wore the same amethyst ring her Grandfather had brought with him from Gallifrey. “But you must have no regrets, Susan. You’ll still have me, your own proper version of me. You’ll see me in the morning. Now it’s time for you to … sleep.”
His fingers found the contact points on her cheek and temple, and the world drifted gently away.
OOO
They ran into the old man on the way out. He was scowling fiercely, a wiry white-maned old lion, and holding a walking stick that he seemed more likely to use as a bludgeon than for support.
Donna started to step in front of her Doctor, but he waved her back. “You know who I am,” he told the old man.
“And I can’t say I think much of what you’ve become,” sneered his first self. “It was you who made the snow, was it? It’s been you all along. And what is the purpose of all this, may I ask? I assume there is some reason for this foolishness.”
Donna looked between the two men. Two? Young and old, a pair of black coats and amethyst rings, a matched set of icy blue wrath-of-God glares. The impression was of a man staring himself down in a mirror … which, in a way, he was.
“I only came to steal a few moments,” said the last Doctor, in a voice that could have given a glacier pause-and chills. “You’ll find they’re more precious than you think. Do try to find that out before you run out of them.” He fished a small package wrapped in festive paper from his pocket, strode bravely into striking distance of the old man, and handed it over. “That’s for Susan. Pretend you bought it for her. Children grow up so very quickly, after all.”
And he brushed past the old man, Donna hurrying in his wake, and into a small linen cupboard the first Doctor couldn’t remember seeing there before.
“Mind you keep that young hooligan away from the engines!” the old man snapped after him, as the cupboard door vanished with a wheeze and a groan.
1. Grandfather Christmas
Susan could feel the time even before she opened her eyes and saw the cat-clock on the wall. “Oh, no,” she groaned, getting up and racing from her room. There wasn’t much hope of getting to the console room and collecting her gift before Grandfather saw it (assuming it was something that could be collected) but she had to try.
When she got there, her worst fears were confirmed. There were wreaths and ribbons and holly everywhere. And a Christmas tree in the corner, an actual Christmas tree, and there was her Grandfather, peering at something attached to one of its branches.
On the other hand, visible steam wasn’t pouring out of his ears.
He looked up to see her standing in the doorway with her hand over her mouth. “Well don’t just stand there, child,” he said. He didn’t sound upset …
“It wasn’t me, Grandfather,” she blurted out.
“No, no, of course not. I’m not so dense as all that, you know. Oh, yes, I know what’s been going on.” He harrumphed, prodding the tree with his stick. “I had worked it out myself, of course. But even if I hadn’t this tree has a note. Saying, ‘To my dear Susan.’ In my handwriting.”
“Oh,” said Susan weakly.
“Yes, I don’t know what I was thinking. Or will be thinking. It seems I’ve been blaming you for my misdeeds …” He hastily changed the subject. “I’ll still want your help cleaning up all this, this-” He snatched a handful of glittering strands from the console.
“Tinsel, Grandfather. Yes, of course, right away.”
“Oh, there’s no need to rush, no need at all,” he said, waving his hand airily. “Tomorrow is soon enough. After we’ve finished celebrating our holiday.”
“Celebrating?” said Susan. She could barely believe it. “You want-you want to celebrate Christmas with me?”
“Yes, well. Hem. We’ve had this, this ritual vegetable sacrifice delivered to us,” he prodded the tree again, “we may as well continue on with the rest of it, eh? Come here, child, I have your gift.”
“My gift?” Susan came forward and took the small package from him, unwrapping it at his urging. She squealed with delight and threw her arms around him, startling him. “Oh, a radio! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Good gracious!” sputtered her Grandfather, though she could tell he was pleased. “There’s no need to be so excited. I give you enough spending money, you could have bought it yourself if you wanted it that badly.”
“Oh, but it’s not so much about having it, Grandfather,” she said. “It’s about … it’s about getting it on Christmas morning from someone who loves you, and unwrapping it, and being excited because you never quite know what you’re getting!” She beamed at him. “I didn’t think you were paying attention when I mentioned it. And I didn’t want to come right out and say because then it wouldn’t be a surprise at all-if you got it for me, I mean, and I didn’t think you would …”
“Not paying attention?” said her Grandfather, pretending to be offended. “Me? Nonsense! You think I’m going deaf, is that it? Or maybe getting forgetful in my old age?”
“Oh, no, Grandfather, not at all. Wait here a moment, I have something for you!”
Susan ran back to her room before her Grandfather could ask her any questions. When she came back she had a small package in her hand and the fez on her head.
“What’s all this, then?” he wanted to know.
“Why, it’s a fez, Grandfather. Fezzes are cool.”
“’Cool’? ‘Cool’?” he muttered. “What’s that wretched school doing to your English? Oh, this is for me?”
“Yes, Grandfather.” She’d never expected to be exchanging gifts with him, so she’d had to make do. She’d used one of the bigger pieces of wrapping paper that had come off the clock.
He pulled the paper away and peered at the small device within, fiddling with the buttons and listening to the whine. “A sonic …”
“Screwdriver,” said Susan. She held her hands behind her back and crossed as many fingers as she could. “I found it in a store-room when we were cleaning out. I suppose it got left behind by one of the previous pilots.”
“Hm, I suppose,” he said, fortunately not paying very close attention. “Very clever idea. Yes, this will come in very useful in my laboratory. I shall take it there as soon as we’ve finished our celebrations. Thank you, my dear. Now! What comes next?”
“Well,” said Susan, “I suppose we could start with some hot cocoa. And then …”
End
Author: Unknown Kadath, AKA kadath_or_bust
Rating: All Ages
Word Count: 4,900
Characters: Susan Foreman, Doctors 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10.5 11, 12, and 13, with appearances by Rose and River
Beta: tardis-mole
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
11: The Child
She didn’t go back inside. Now that she was back, she remembered the argument she’d had with her Grandfather. And she wanted time to think. So she pulled her coat tight around her, tucked the little toy zeppelin safely into a pocket, and slipped out of the junkyard to make her way down the street, weaving through a throng of last-minute shoppers.
It was so strange to think of Grandfather living a human life, so finite and fleeting. She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it. And yet he’d still been so very much himself underneath everything.
And Rose, and the baby. It wasn’t quite like a Gallifreyan family, and yet it made Susan think of her own home, when she was very small. Before it all went wrong. It was what a family was supposed to be like. Being surrounded by people who loved you. Belonging someplace, having a place to call … home.
Susan. Baby Susan. It softened the knowledge of her death, to know that the story wouldn't be over when she left it, that there would be some girl named Susan who carried on. Perhaps that was the meaning of a family; being a part of something larger than oneself.
“Susan?”
She jumped a bit when the woman spoke to her out of the crowd. It was someone she’d never seen before, a smiling woman with masses of blonde curls. She looked friendly enough, but there was something a bit out of place about her. Susan had never seen her before. “Hello?” she replied.
“I’m River, sweetie. River Song.” She held out her hand and Susan shook it automatically. River had a firm, confident grip. And a coat in entirely the wrong style for the time period, Susan realized. “Your Grandfather sent me to look for you. He’s very sorry.”
“You know my Grandfather?” Susan was surprised, although perhaps she shouldn’t be after the day she’d been having.
“Not yet,” laughed River. She had a nice laugh, and Susan decided she liked her. “A long time from now. But he remembers being worried about you.”
The surprise trip between universes had thrown off Susan’s time-sense, but by the light she thought as much time must have passed in both places. She’d have been gone for hours.
“I suppose I should go back,” admitted Susan. “Which one of my Grandfather do you know?”
“Oh, I’ve known a lot of them,” River evaded.
“I’m not sure which one is visiting me,” said Susan. The metacrisis Doctor with his human life (and lifespan?) had made her think of the reasons for those visits. She couldn’t bring herself to ask him, but perhaps River could tell her. “It’s his last, isn’t it? He doesn’t have any regenerations left, and he wants to say goodbye.”
She knew it would happen someday. But seeing it happen … that was another story.
“Oh, sweetie,” sighed River. She put an arm around Susan’s shoulders as they walked through the Tenth Doctor’s artificial snow. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. You know, sometimes I could just strangle that man. He gets a prophecy, or a footnote in a history text, or a giant radioactive space wombat, and he turns into such a drama queen-goes around saying goodbye to everyone he's ever met. I think it’s a phase he’s going through.”
“But which one sent you?” Susan persisted.
“The Sixteenth,” said River. Then she winked and slipped away down a side street. Susan spent the rest of the walk back to Totter’s Lane trying to figure out if she’d been joking.
She was glad she’d met River and Rose. It made her feel that her Grandfather really would be all right some day if she left him. Not that she expected to see any of him settled down on Earth with a normal human family, but if he could go around making friends with people like that, there would be someone to look after him, someone who would stop him from being too lonely.
“Susan! Susan, there you are!”
Her Grandfather hurried up to her, putting on a stern face and trying to pretend that he hadn’t been worried about her. And that he wasn’t out in the snow looking for her. “And where have you been?”
“I was out walking,” she said, not quite ready to forgive him yet.
He fidgeted slightly and looked at her sidelong. “Yes, well, I’ve been looking over the equipment in the TARDIS. It’s quite out of order. I’m not sure the sensors are working correctly, either-very strange readings the last few days, very strange indeed, most unreliable. It’s entirely possible this snow is natural. Probable, even. Yes, I should say-”
“I’m glad it did snow,” said Susan, relenting. Besides, she really was glad it had snowed, and she wanted his future self to remember. If it hadn’t been for the snow she’d have stayed in the TARDIS all day and never met River, or the other Grandfather, or Rose and baby Susan. “It’s very pretty.”
“Well, I suppose it is, child,” said her Grandfather, trying not to look too relieved. “But let’s get inside out of it now, shall we? It’s getting chilly.”
OOO
She dreamed of the snow that night. In the dream it lay in even thicker drifts, uninterrupted by buildings and streets, unmarked by any footprints except her own.
Susan looked around at the great white expanse of it. There didn’t seem to be anyone here, so she indulged in something she’d heard about-she lay down on it and began to wave her arms and legs to make a snow angel.
“Eep!” she giggled, as the snow started to work its way down her collar. She sat up out of the angel, and found someone offering her a hand up.
“Having fun, dear?” asked a kindly voice.
This Grandfather had ancient eyes set in a face younger than any Susan had seen so far, with floppy hair and a chin that looked like it might have been intended for someone else entirely. But however young his body was, he dressed like the oldest, stuffiest teachers at Coal Hill-the tweed and the braces and the bow tie. With one exception …
“Hello, Grandfather,” laughed Susan. “What are you wearing?”
He smiled and fingered the bow tie.
“No, on your head!”
He smiled wider and puffed out his chest proudly. “It’s a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool.”
“Really?” asked Susan, torn between horror and mirth.
He deflated suddenly, and looked so exaggeratedly forlorn that Susan had to keep fighting laughter. “No. Not really. I try, but no one will let me. Amy stole it. And then River-River shot it. Who shoots hats? Nobody …”
“I met River,” said Susan.
“What?” he said, distracted.
“I met River. And before that I met a metacrisis of you, and his family. I never met a metacrisis before. And they-”
“What! No, no, no, no, that can’t be right!” He started to pace up and down, wearing a trench in the snow, pulling at his hair and almost dislodging the fez. “Gaaah!”
“But I got back all right, and everything’s fine, and he thinks it was just the TARDISes parked too closely together,” she went on.
Eventually he calmed down. “I suppose, since I don’t remember the planet exploding, it must be all right,” he conceded. But he made her tell him everything that had happened, twice. “I haven’t really kept in touch with them, you know. Well, obviously, different universe and all.”
“They seemed very happy,” said Susan.
“Let’s build a snowman,” he said. “I always wanted to build a snowman with you. I was just too busy being a stuffy grown-up back then.”
The snowman turned out wildly lopsided, with a crooked smile of coal (“Ha-ha! There goes your gift-joking, joking!) and out-flung arms of gnarled branches. This Doctor really did seem to have given up on being an adult. He had all the energy of a puppy and as little coordination, with a funny walk and extravagant waves of his arms. But when he put his fez on the snowman’s head, he placed it carefully, making fussy little adjustments like an old man and peering at it with his eyes nearly crossed.
“I thought you liked your fez too much,” said Susan. “Why’re you giving it to the snowman?”
“Because snowmen are cool, too,” said her Grandfather. “And for safekeeping.”
“Safekeeping?”
“Yeah. Coz I’m about to do this!”
He whipped around and hurled a snowball, striking her on the shoulder. Susan shrieked as the snow splashed onto her face. “Oooh, no, you’re not getting away with that!” And she scooped up an icy handful and returned fire, laughing.
“Ah! No! Help!” For all he’d started the fight, he really wasn’t much good at it, and before long Susan had knocked him into a snowdrift.
She woke up just as she was about to shove a handful of snow down the back of his shirt, which she thought was deliberate, not to mention unfair, but probably understandable. There was a fez perched on the pillow beside her.
12: The Distinguished Gentleman
The next night, she found herself walking in a well-manicured garden in a dusky summer twilight. The scent of roses filled the air. There was a man walking beside her, a tall slim man in a white suit. His hair was neat and dark, silver at the temples (she knew at a glance that this one’s hair would never turn so dull a color as grey) and he carried a stick much like her first Grandfather’s, crunching faintly against the gravel as they walked.
“You’re very different from the last one,” she ventured.
“Yes, I dare say that I am,” he said. His voice was smooth and coolly amused, and yet not without affection. His face was a bit more youthful than his silver hair suggested, and he had eyes of a striking pale green, a color caught between ice and new leaves. “I thought perhaps it was time to be an adult. After all, if not now, then when? Do you like my garden, by the way?”
“Yes, very much,” said Susan. Then she registered the word he’d used. “Yours? Is it a real place or a dream?”
“Quite real. Part of a property I acquired on New New New Earth, in the year Seven Million.”
“Property?” said Susan, trying not to smile at the thought. But a quick look at his impassive face showed he was entirely serious. “Are you … have you stopped traveling?” She couldn’t quite imagine him staying still long enough to have a house and a garden and things, let alone bothering with them. The car he’d had during his exile she could understand. But this place?
“Oh, no, I still travel,” he assured her, with a dry little chuckle. “I have a staff of liberated robots who maintain all this while I’m away. But it’s good to have a place to come back to.” His expression darkened slightly, like the fading sky above them. “Someplace that belongs to me, rather than relying on the welcome of others.”
“Are there still troubles back home, Grandfather?” asked Susan.
“Home?” he asked, startled. Then his eyes widened, and he gave a small, sharp shake of his head. “This is my home, child. River quite likes it, she tells me.”
“Oh, you still know River?” said Susan.
“Oh, yes, for several lives now. I’m not sure this is her favorite incarnation of mine, between you and me,” he confided. “She tells me I’m turning stuffy. Or senile. Keeps using the topiary for target practice, says it’ll keep me from getting too set in my ways.” He made a small tching noise, though he didn’t seem terribly bothered. “Perhaps I am getting old. I like to have a place where my family can gather.”
“Family?” asked Susan.
He turned to her and smiled, all secrets and mysteries.
“Tell me, Susan,” he said. “What did you see, in the Untempered Schism?”
Susan was silent for a moment. She almost stopped walking in her surprise. That was something that was simply Not Talked About, and here was this prim-and-proper incarnation of her Grandfather, asking her so baldly about what was supposed to be the most private of things.
But she realized that he was still waiting patiently for an answer, and Susan cared even less about what was ‘proper’ than her first Grandfather had.
“I saw Gallifrey,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Gallifrey with all eternity around us, and our time stretching out in front of us. And all that we were, and all that we could ever be … That’s why I came with you, Grandfather.”
“Oh?”
“Because …” She toed a loose bit of gravel. “I saw that Gallifrey had already been about as much as it was going to be, and I wanted more.”
“I see,” he said, nodding thoughtfully.
“What did you see?” she asked on impulse, not expecting an answer.
“You saw Eternity from the shelter of Gallifrey. I didn’t see Gallifrey at all,” he said. “Only myself, alone, unshielded, unprotected against the backdrop of Eternity. First I ran from it. And then … then I ran towards it. Towards …”
He raised his stick, pointing at the sky. Susan looked up. Night had fallen fully, and there were a million million stars shining like diamonds against the darkness …
She woke up, feeling tears in her eyes at the wonder of it, and a fading homesickness for a place she had left behind, and a place she would never go. On her pillow was a little snow globe, of the sort humans made, and inside it was a replica of the Citadel, perfect in every detail.
OOO
“Grandfather?” asked Susan.
“Hm?” He looked up from the chessboard, listening attentively. He hadn’t apologized for what he'd accused her of, and Susan knew better than to expect it, but he obviously realized he was in the wrong. He had stopped pursuing his sensor gremlins with such intensity, though Susan knew how much it must still bother him, and he was going out of his way to do other things with her.
She thought maybe she could take advantage of his mood to ask him a few things he might refuse to talk about otherwise. “Do you ever think of home, Grandfather?”
“Eh? Home? Why, what’s brought this on?” he sputtered, suddenly peering at her suspiciously.
“Oh, it’s just all the people at school, talking about Christmas. How they’re going to visit all their relatives.” Susan toyed with a pawn, pretending the subject was of no great importance. “I was just wondering what was happening back home. What everyone was doing. If you ever thought about it.”
“I don’t see why I should,” he sniffed. “I dare say they’re getting on perfectly well without us. And don’t think we’d be given a warm welcome if we popped back for a visit-unless it was a welcome too hot for our liking.”
“Oh, no, Grandfather, I don’t want to go back there,” said Susan hastily.
“Oh. Well. That’s very good, as I can’t take you.” He looked very relieved, and Susan wondered if he’d thought she would ask to go home because of those things he'd said. Silly Grandfather, how could he think that? “You want to visit these children you’ve met at school, then? Well, I don’t see what harm that could do, if you don’t make too great a habit of it. You’ll want to see them on Christmas, I suppose.”
“No …” said Susan, although normally he discouraged her from getting too close to human students. “It’s Christmas. They want to be with their families. You’re my family, Grandfather. I want to spend it with you.”
“Oh! Oh, I see,” chuckled her Grandfather, ruffling her hair. He was obviously pleased by this, though he was trying not to show how moved he was. “Silly girl-don’t you spend most of your days with me?”
“Well, yes, Grandfather.” Susan smiled at him, thought about asking again to celebrate Christmas with him, and didn’t quite dare. She moved her bishop instead. “Check!”
13: The Ginger
If Susan had been human, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all that night. As it was it took her a great deal of concentration and every breathing technique she knew.
Part of the problem was that she wasn’t sure she wanted to fall asleep. She very much wanted to see her next future Grandfather, now that she was used to the changes and had come to look forward to them. But Time Lords only had thirteen lives, River’s joke (it had to be a joke) notwithstanding. This would be the last night, and she didn’t want it to be over.
When she did sleep, she was disappointed. All she dreamed about were tap-dancing penguins, and she was pretty sure none of them were her Grandfather. Finally, around three in the morning, she woke herself up.
“I was wondering when you’d get tired of the penguins.”
He was sitting in the chair by her bed, a very young man (even younger than the Eleventh, and only a few years older than Susan herself) dressed all in black. He had a black velvet coat, black shirt, black jeans, black boots, with a black tie patterned in little silver question marks.
It should have looked sinister, but despite the color his clothes were such a mish-mash of styles that it came off as merely eccentric at worse. And his face was too open and cheerful to look anything less than friendly.
His hair was flaming ginger. His eyes were older than the stars, and as bright as a child’s, and he had a smile like the first light of dawn on Christmas morning.
“Grandfather,” she said. “You’re here, really here.”
“I got tired of sleeping so much,” he said. “Anyway, you’ve met everyone else. It was time to meet the real me. The last me.”
Susan got up and went over to hug him. “I’m glad I met you,” she said, “all of you.”
“And I’m glad I came back to see you.” He moved away to arm’s length, looking her over fondly. “Ah. My Susan.”
“Are you in danger, Grandfather?” she asked. “Is that why you’ve come back now?”
“No!” he said. Then he looked guilty and ran a nervous hand through his hair, which already looked like he styled it by giving himself massive electric shocks. “Well, not really. Well, not really more than usual. Well, there’s-”
“Giant radioactive space wombat?”
“You have been talking to River, I see. Well, yes, there’s that.” He fidgeted. “But I did simply want to see you. And I did promise you I'd come back, one day.”
He sighed. “I put things off, you know-always have. I store things up for rainy days. And I’ve done it for so long I’m starting to have more things than days. Now, now,” he overrode her protests, “I still have a good many days left, I hope. But there’s something about being on one’s thirteenth life that gives one a different perspective of time. And promises are made to be kept.”
They were interrupted by a young ginger woman bursting into the room. “Doctor, that old geezer’s woken up and he’s on the warpath. I managed to distract him by turning half the knobs in the engine room-”
“Oh, dear, I wish you hadn’t done that,” said the Doctor, tugging at his hair again. “This is Donna Temple-Noble,” he said to Susan.
“Doctor Donna Temple-Noble,” said the woman, rolling her eyes.
“I traveled with her gran,” finished the Doctor.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Susan, shaking Donna’s hand. “I’m Susan.”
“So you’re his … granddaughter,” said Donna, looking between Susan and the young man. “It’s a job and a half looking after him, isn’t it? He got us arrested three times last week.”
“I only got us arrested twice!” sputtered the Doctor. “The other time was your fault. Pay no attention, Susan!”
“Well, if you had gotten the decade right, my bikini wouldn't have been public indecency, so … still your fault,” Donna shot back, hands on her hips.
He stuck his tongue out at her and turned to his granddaughter. “Susan-”
“I know.” She would very much like to get to know Donna, and this version of her Grandfather, but she knew if her first Grandfather was awake they didn’t have much time. She hadn’t had nearly enough time with any of them. “I love you, Grandfather. I’ll never forget any of you.”
“My dear Susan.” He took her in his arms and kissed her forehead one last time. “I’ve always been so proud of you. And I always will be. You never did waver in your beliefs, even when I faltered in mine. And you will always be an inspiration to me.”
He gave her shoulders a last squeeze and stepped away. “I must go. I’ve left your last gift in the console room.”
“Grandfather will go mad,” said Susan, wincing.
“No, I won’t.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Trust me, I was there.”
Susan found herself crying. She knew what had to be, but she couldn’t stay strong any more. “Grandfather, I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to go, either,” he said, reaching out to touch her face. She saw that he wore the same amethyst ring her Grandfather had brought with him from Gallifrey. “But you must have no regrets, Susan. You’ll still have me, your own proper version of me. You’ll see me in the morning. Now it’s time for you to … sleep.”
His fingers found the contact points on her cheek and temple, and the world drifted gently away.
OOO
They ran into the old man on the way out. He was scowling fiercely, a wiry white-maned old lion, and holding a walking stick that he seemed more likely to use as a bludgeon than for support.
Donna started to step in front of her Doctor, but he waved her back. “You know who I am,” he told the old man.
“And I can’t say I think much of what you’ve become,” sneered his first self. “It was you who made the snow, was it? It’s been you all along. And what is the purpose of all this, may I ask? I assume there is some reason for this foolishness.”
Donna looked between the two men. Two? Young and old, a pair of black coats and amethyst rings, a matched set of icy blue wrath-of-God glares. The impression was of a man staring himself down in a mirror … which, in a way, he was.
“I only came to steal a few moments,” said the last Doctor, in a voice that could have given a glacier pause-and chills. “You’ll find they’re more precious than you think. Do try to find that out before you run out of them.” He fished a small package wrapped in festive paper from his pocket, strode bravely into striking distance of the old man, and handed it over. “That’s for Susan. Pretend you bought it for her. Children grow up so very quickly, after all.”
And he brushed past the old man, Donna hurrying in his wake, and into a small linen cupboard the first Doctor couldn’t remember seeing there before.
“Mind you keep that young hooligan away from the engines!” the old man snapped after him, as the cupboard door vanished with a wheeze and a groan.
1. Grandfather Christmas
Susan could feel the time even before she opened her eyes and saw the cat-clock on the wall. “Oh, no,” she groaned, getting up and racing from her room. There wasn’t much hope of getting to the console room and collecting her gift before Grandfather saw it (assuming it was something that could be collected) but she had to try.
When she got there, her worst fears were confirmed. There were wreaths and ribbons and holly everywhere. And a Christmas tree in the corner, an actual Christmas tree, and there was her Grandfather, peering at something attached to one of its branches.
On the other hand, visible steam wasn’t pouring out of his ears.
He looked up to see her standing in the doorway with her hand over her mouth. “Well don’t just stand there, child,” he said. He didn’t sound upset …
“It wasn’t me, Grandfather,” she blurted out.
“No, no, of course not. I’m not so dense as all that, you know. Oh, yes, I know what’s been going on.” He harrumphed, prodding the tree with his stick. “I had worked it out myself, of course. But even if I hadn’t this tree has a note. Saying, ‘To my dear Susan.’ In my handwriting.”
“Oh,” said Susan weakly.
“Yes, I don’t know what I was thinking. Or will be thinking. It seems I’ve been blaming you for my misdeeds …” He hastily changed the subject. “I’ll still want your help cleaning up all this, this-” He snatched a handful of glittering strands from the console.
“Tinsel, Grandfather. Yes, of course, right away.”
“Oh, there’s no need to rush, no need at all,” he said, waving his hand airily. “Tomorrow is soon enough. After we’ve finished celebrating our holiday.”
“Celebrating?” said Susan. She could barely believe it. “You want-you want to celebrate Christmas with me?”
“Yes, well. Hem. We’ve had this, this ritual vegetable sacrifice delivered to us,” he prodded the tree again, “we may as well continue on with the rest of it, eh? Come here, child, I have your gift.”
“My gift?” Susan came forward and took the small package from him, unwrapping it at his urging. She squealed with delight and threw her arms around him, startling him. “Oh, a radio! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Good gracious!” sputtered her Grandfather, though she could tell he was pleased. “There’s no need to be so excited. I give you enough spending money, you could have bought it yourself if you wanted it that badly.”
“Oh, but it’s not so much about having it, Grandfather,” she said. “It’s about … it’s about getting it on Christmas morning from someone who loves you, and unwrapping it, and being excited because you never quite know what you’re getting!” She beamed at him. “I didn’t think you were paying attention when I mentioned it. And I didn’t want to come right out and say because then it wouldn’t be a surprise at all-if you got it for me, I mean, and I didn’t think you would …”
“Not paying attention?” said her Grandfather, pretending to be offended. “Me? Nonsense! You think I’m going deaf, is that it? Or maybe getting forgetful in my old age?”
“Oh, no, Grandfather, not at all. Wait here a moment, I have something for you!”
Susan ran back to her room before her Grandfather could ask her any questions. When she came back she had a small package in her hand and the fez on her head.
“What’s all this, then?” he wanted to know.
“Why, it’s a fez, Grandfather. Fezzes are cool.”
“’Cool’? ‘Cool’?” he muttered. “What’s that wretched school doing to your English? Oh, this is for me?”
“Yes, Grandfather.” She’d never expected to be exchanging gifts with him, so she’d had to make do. She’d used one of the bigger pieces of wrapping paper that had come off the clock.
He pulled the paper away and peered at the small device within, fiddling with the buttons and listening to the whine. “A sonic …”
“Screwdriver,” said Susan. She held her hands behind her back and crossed as many fingers as she could. “I found it in a store-room when we were cleaning out. I suppose it got left behind by one of the previous pilots.”
“Hm, I suppose,” he said, fortunately not paying very close attention. “Very clever idea. Yes, this will come in very useful in my laboratory. I shall take it there as soon as we’ve finished our celebrations. Thank you, my dear. Now! What comes next?”
“Well,” said Susan, “I suppose we could start with some hot cocoa. And then …”
End